Sen. Dianne Feinstein Releases Fusion GPS Transcript

Here is the official source. desantis asks speaker ryan to declassify doj documents related to steele dossier Now we wait what Paul Ryan does. I guess he has no intention of commiting political suicide in refusing the will of the people.

I've finished reading it. The most "explosive" thing from the last third is the claim by Simpson's lawyer that somebody has "already been killed" because of the dossier.

I can't imagine what in this would constitute a threat to the integrity of the investigation as Grassley claimed.

One possible thought on that is that they repeatedly asked about Rinat Akhmetshin — far more than they did about Veselnitskaya — questions like this from page 255:

14 not have been consistent with our agreement.
15 Q. And then given that, would it surprise you
16 if Mr. Steele had talked with Rinat Akhmetshin
17 about the work he was doing related to then
18 Candidate Trump?
19 A. Yes, that would surprise me.

and these from 259:

8 Q. To the extent there have been allegations
9 or indications that the work that Mr. Steele did,
10 his research into Russian interference in the 2016
11 election, or your work could have been influenced
12 by Rinat Akhmetshin, do you believe that is true
13 and if -- do you believe it's true?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Do you believe that the work that
16 Mr. Steele did on Russian interference and possible
17 ties to the Trump campaign or your work could have
18 been influenced by Natalia Veselnitskaya?
19 A. No.

A clue to the multiple questions regarding Akhmetshin might have been this from back on pages 222/223:

17 Q. Did Mr. Steele represent to you that Orbis
18 or Mr. Wood had initiated this contact with
19 Mr. Kramer and Mr. McCain to share the dossier
20 information?
21 A. Well, that has two parts on that question.
22 I think I can answer the first part which I think
23 answers the second. Anyway, he did not describe
24 this as having been initiated by Orbis. He
25 described this as a chance encounter at a security

1 conference where, you know, someone who had some
2 knowledge of these matters shared it with Senator
3 McCain and David Kramer and that caused David
4 Kramer to follow up with Chris and that it was
5 passive. In other words, it was initiated by
6 Mr. Kramer.
7 Q. Did Mr. Steele describe anyone else being
8 involved at the Halifax international security
9 conference in this discussion?
10 A. Not that I can recall.
11 Q. According to the official attendee list
12 for that conference, Mr. Akhmetshin was also there.
13 To the best of your knowledge, was he involved in
14 any capacity in the effort to discuss the dossier
15 information with Mr. Kramer and Mr. McCain?
16 A. That's the first time I've received that
17 information. So I don't have any knowledge.
18 Q. And you haven't spoken with Mr. Akhmetshin
19 about that, I assume?
20 A. No.

There's some interesting bits about how/why Steele stopped talking to the FBI (spread over multiple questions/answers). The picture that emerges is that in late September, as other stories were breaking in the news, Simpson was in contact with a number of reporters. This led to him having Steele attend a briefing of sorts with reporters from a number of outlets in late-September.

Then on Halloween, just prior to the election, this story was published in the NYT:

Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia

According to Simpson's statements about this (page 179 — excerpted in one of my previous posts too):

1 Sometime thereafter the FBI -- I understand
2 Chris severed his relationship with the FBI out of
3 concern that he didn't know what was happening
4 inside the FBI and there was a concern that the FBI
5 was being manipulated for political ends by the
6 Trump people and that we didn't really understand
7 what was going on. So he stopped dealing with
8 them.

I wonder if some of this also had to do with the pre-election reporting in mostly right-wing sources about an internal "revolt" in the FBI. Anyway, this bit on page 208 seems to line up with reporting that the FBI actually stopped talking to Steele because there was too much media coverage of things relating to the dossier:

1 Q. Did Mr. Steele ever indicate to you
2 whether the FBI had asked him not to speak with the
3 media?
4 A. I remember Chris saying at some point that
5 they were upset with media coverage of some of the
6 issues that he had discussed with him.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

The "inside source" thing has already been clarified. It was a reference to intel from the Australian government about Papadopolous (it's been reported on since I posted that excerpt earlier).

a reply to: theantediluvian

my question is were did she make her money by my calculations it would almost a millinium at her congressional pay rate to make 100 million dollars.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Released for "transparency" yet large chunks of it are still blocked out. Looks more like trying to get testimony out so other people involved can get their stories right before testifying.

You do not honestly believe that they would admit to anything , do you ?

Gullible

easily persuaded to believe something; credulous
Synonym - naive

Defs by Google

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: theantediluvian

Released for "transparency" yet large chunks of it are still blocked out. Looks more like trying to get testimony out so other people involved can get their stories right before testifying.

Large chunks of what are blocked out? They redacted a couple names. The name of a bank and Steele's contact in the Rome FBI office specifically.

a reply to: neo96

If Feinstein was interested in the public knowing the truth.

The committee hearing would have been public.

It ain't Feinstein's call to make. Republicans control the committee, she is just the ranking Democrat.

a reply to: neo96

It's not Feinsteins testimony. It's Glen Simpson owner of fusion gps.

a reply to: Sillyolme

Simpson .

That so called journalist.

I guess that's what passes for intelligence in the 21st century.

Might was well get rid of the CIA,and DIA,and NSA.

Let political hack journalists run the show.

a reply to: neo96

Might was well get rid of the CIA,and DIA,and NSA.

Why? It was they who provided the evidence needed from Five Eyes to the FISA judge to procure the warrants.

You know who has those intercepts now, why I believe a Mr Mueller is now in possession of those foreign intercepts.

K~

So I have read some of the transcript, and read other comments on it.

The first thing I would like to point out is that as Ante has shown, Simpson testified that the FBI told steele that they had a source inside the Trump campaign that confirmed there was some Trump team/ Russia connections.

That is appalling.

The FBI told a paid contractor working on behalf of Trumps opponent information into a investigation on his team?

Unreal.

Is that the new precedent?

So now if there is any investigation against a democrat, information of that should be leaked from the FBI to people being paid by republicans to get dirt on those very same democrats?

More evidence that the FBI is acting as a political tool.

Has anyone else read the whole thing? Anyone spot anything in the transcript to back up the assertions of Grassley that its release could compromise the integrity of the investigation?

And more that I got from this source.

www.zerohedge.com...

6. On that list.

Simpson said only one periphery person he hired spoke russian.

However, according to this guy Sean Davis, Oher's (the DOJ official; who secretly met with fusion) wife was an employee of Fusion and spoke fluent russian.

Sean Davis‏Verified account @seanmdav

We know from public reports that Fusion GPS hired Nellie Ohr, who speaks Russian fluently. Yet when asked which Russian language experts he retained, Simpson claimed he had only hired an Edward Baumgartner. Quite the omission.

twitter.com...

Quite the huge lie. If Simpson was willing to lie about this, what else would he be lying about?

originally posted by: theantediluvian
Has anyone else read the whole thing? Anyone spot anything in the transcript to back up the assertions of Grassley that its release could compromise the integrity of the investigation?

I skimmed it, admittedly not as well as you.

I believe Grassley may be referring to the idea of one member deciding to universally leak private hearings could chill other people from cooperating in testifying because they are worried that Feinstein could leak their comments that they thought were private.

a reply to: Grambler

It seems that Glenn Simpson was not referring to a informant from inside the Trump organization/campaign/whatever but to the tip from Australia about Papadopolous running his mouth to their ambassador to the UK.

So now if there is any investigation against a democrat, information of that should be leaked from the FBI to people being paid by republicans to get dirt on those very same democrats?

Nah, just to Fox News via Giuliani, who you'll recall was a Trump surrogate at the time. I'm sure you'll also recall the multitude of articles claiming that the FBI rank and file were in revolt pre-election right?

Then you've got the fact that the HPSCI clearly leaked all sorts of cherry-picked details from Simpson's testimony in November to right-wing media sources like Chuck Ross @ The Daily Caller. They also apparently leaked details of Fusion GPS's bank records.

It's rather a mess but it's not exactly anything new. Loose lips. Deliberate leaks. Political gamesmanship.

a reply to: Grambler

I'm referring to his initial comments in response to Fusion GPS and later Senate Democrats, including members of the Judiciary Committee, that he release the transcripts.

originally posted by: theantediluvian

It's rather a mess but it's not exactly anything new. Loose lips. Deliberate leaks. Political gamesmanship.

Yes loose lips from politicians is bad, and happens on aall sides.

But the FBI having loose lips to an oppo firm of the person they are investigating, thats a whole new level.

But at least you admit, the FBI is engaging in political gamesmanship.

Why should we trust any of them in an investigation then?

a reply to: Grambler

If you look at the pages in question (p.103-104), you'll see that he's specifically referring to the Prezevon work.

12 Q. And did anyone at Fusion or perhaps
13 Mr. Baumgartner review Russian documents related to
14 the Prevezon matter?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Do any --
17 A. Most of them were Russian court
18 documents.
19 Q. Do any Fusion employees or associates
20 speak Russian?
21 A. No. I'll qualify that. Depends on how
22 you define associate. Edward isn't an employee of
23 the company, but he speaks Russian. He's a
24 subcontractor.
25 Q. Aside from Mr. Baumgartner, do you have

1 any other support from Russian-speaking individuals
2 in reviewing the Russian documents?
3 A. Not in my company, at least not that I can
4 recall. There was other Russian speakers I think
5 that were engaged by Baker Hostetler in various
6 situations, like translators, Russian bilingual
7 lawyers, that sort of thing.

Sean Davis is one to talk about omissions, eh?

He admits that they utilized Russian speaking subcontractors. He mentions that earlier too on page 83:

17 A. So we had other people like Ed Baumgartner
18 who, you know, by this time -- I guess Prevezon was
19 still winding down, but who would do Russian
20 language research which didn't involve going to
21 Russia. It just involves reading Russian newspaper
22 accounts and that sort of thing.

I'd be really interested in reading the transcript of the testimony to the HPSCI. That's where the Nellie Ohr bit was leaked from. It was then confirmed by HPSCI investigators speaking to Fox News.

Fusion GPS admits DOJ official's wife Nellie Ohr hired to probe Trump

Contacted by Fox News, investigators for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) confirmed that Nellie H. Ohr, wife of the demoted official, Bruce G. Ohr, worked for the opposition research firm last year. The precise nature of Mrs. Ohr’s duties – including whether she worked on the dossier – remains unclear but a review of her published works available online reveals Mrs. Ohr has written extensively on Russia-related subjects. HPSCI staff confirmed to Fox News that she was paid by Fusion GPS through the summer and fall of 2016.

HPSCI sources are leaked from the Simpson testimony that Simpson stated that he met with Bruce Ohr after the election.

originally posted by: theantediluvian

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: theantediluvian

Released for "transparency" yet large chunks of it are still blocked out. Looks more like trying to get testimony out so other people involved can get their stories right before testifying.

Large chunks of what are blocked out? They redacted a couple names. The name of a bank and Steele's contact in the Rome FBI office specifically.

The guy who testified said someone died from the dossier. No name given, no date time or place given. The names that were included but blocked out could shed light on some unanswered questions. Why, if you are going too claim transparency, block out the info that would make it transparent?